Wednesday, September 22, 2010

The Copy-Cat Scientist

You've worked hard, published some important papers, and have a lot of great ideas. Unfortunately, Julie, a new scientist in your department, has been copying your research approaches and is using them to compete with you for funding. You realize that some overlap in research topics is inevitable, but Julie is methodically duplicating your program. She has been busily talking up her work to the higher-ups and has managed to get resources to facilitate her move into your research territory.

Julie, whom you suspect has few original ideas of her own, is copying your research because it is so successful and has brought you a lot of attention and funding in the past. You also discover that she has been getting detailed information about your methods from your technicians and students--without your permission.

Competition in the scientific community is normal and necessary for the field to move forward. However, within a research organization, too much competition and overlap in research areas can lead to a toxic, suspicious environment. People are reluctant to talk freely about their ideas and projects with co-workers for fear of someone taking their ideas and passing them off as their own to superiors. Such a situation often arises when science managers encourage competition among researchers (thinking that this will result in greater funding and science output).

Most scientists prefer to establish their own unique area(s) of research, but sometimes there will be one person who can only survive by copying what others do.

Most of us have so many questions and ideas to try out, that there just aren't enough hours in the day to address them. I thought everyone was like this until I had a conversation many years ago with a post-doc who asked me where I got all of my research ideas. At the time, I was a master's-level research associate, but was writing papers and proposals. I had been rattling on about some ideas I had for a study I wanted to conduct, when I noticed this post-doc staring at me with a strange look on his face. He seemed quite mystified as to how I had thought of these research questions and then how I came up with a set of experiments (so quickly) to test the questions. At first, I thought he was just surprised that someone without a Ph.D. could do this, but his later comments told me that he simply had difficulty thinking of new questions to ask. I've later discovered that this lack of creative spark/curiosity is not that rare. When such people no longer have an adviser feeding them ideas, they must turn elsewhere.

In other cases, some people are so competitive that they actively steal ideas to scoop a colleague. I knew someone like this once. He particularly liked to prey on graduate students who would unwittingly tell him their ideas. This scientist would then quickly do the study and publish it before the student could finish. He also targeted women, minorities, and visiting scientists from foreign institutions. It was a game to him, and he even bragged about it. Classic bully. Picking on the weak who could not fight back.

This type of situation is probably one of the most distressing that a research scientist can face. Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but when it goes too far, you need to take action. So what do you do?

You cannot really say much against someone like this because you will look defensive and territorial, and it's really easy for the imitator to counter with the claim that they are simply focusing on important issues of the day and their work has nothing to do with you and your research. In fact, any complaints from you (to superiors) will likely backfire.

As I've been trying to point out in this series, self-promotion may not only be a good idea, but essential to protect yourself against just this type of situation--or combat it if it develops. The suggestions I made in this previous post about making sure you document your ideas or only provide them in front of witnesses so that the copy-cat cannot claim them later will certainly work in this situation. However, you may need a more comprehensive strategy. More in the next post.

Welcome

New title, same content. This blog discusses some of the challenges scientists and students of science face every day. Although some of the content is focused on women in science and our particular experiences, much of it is relevant to anyone seeking to achieve their full potential in life and work. For more information about the motivations for the blog, see this post.

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Identification of Famous Female Scientists

This list identifies the photos of famous female scientists posted here.

1. Barbara McClintock, American cytogeneticist and Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine (1983), discovered transposition, “Jumping Genes”2. Jane Goodall, American primatologist, studied chimpanzee social and family interactions for 45 years in Tanzania.3. Jane Lubchenco, American marine ecologist and environmental scientist, recently appointed by President Obama to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.4. Mary Leakey, British anthropologist and archeologist who discovered the first skull of a fossil ape, also studied tools and fossils of ancient hominids in Olduvai Gorge.5. Rosalind Franklin, British crystallographer and biophysicist who made contributions to the understanding of the molecular structures of DNA, RNA, viruses, coal, and graphite.6. Ada Yonath, Israeli crystallographer known for pioneering work on the structure of the ribosome; awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2009).7. Rosalyn Sussman Yalow, American medical physicist and co-winner of the 1977 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her development of the radioimmunoassay (RIA) technique.8. Margaret Mead, cultural anthropologist whose work influenced the 1960s sexual revolution, “Coming of Age in Samoa”9. Mary Kingsley, early British explorer, naturalist, and writer who greatly influenced European ideas about Africa and African people; studied cannibal tribes and collected specimens of fish.10. Rachel Carson, American marine biologist and nature writer whose work is credited with advancing the global environmental movement; best known for her book “Silent Spring”, which describes problems caused by synthetic pesticides.11. Annie J. Easley, African-American computer scientist who worked for NASA; leading member of the team that developed software for the Centaur rocket stage.12. Dian Fossey, American zoologist who studied gorillas in Rwanda, murdered in 1985, possibly by poachers.

12.Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver), science lead of the Avatar Program to explore Pandora, a moon about 4.3 light years from Earth; Avatar (2009).

If you are in a STEM (science, technology, engineering, or math) field, how would you characterize your social skill level? If non-STEM, jump to the poll below. Pick the choice closest to your overall behavior:

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Previous Weekly Quotes

“The lecturer should give the audience full reason to believe that all his powers have been exerted for their pleasure and instruction.” ~Michael Faraday

"The world is divided into people who do things and people who get the credit."~Dwight Whitney Morrow

“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.” ~Winston S. Churchhill

"There is no elevator to success. You have to take the stairs."~Anon.

"There are two types of Ph.D. thesis: perfect and submitted."~Anon.

"Beware of the pursuit of the Superhuman; it leads to an indiscriminate contempt for the human"~George Bernard Shaw

"As we know from the work of certain fundamental physicists, people like Einstein were very dependent upon conjuring up visual images in order to imagine things which otherwise were not easily formulated." ~ Jonathan Miller

"The imagination exercises a powerful influence over every act of sense, thought, reason,-- over every idea."~Anonymous Latin Proverb

"The best thinking has been done in solitude.~Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) American inventor.

"The secret of joy in work is contained in one word - excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it." ~ Pearl Buck (US novelist in China, 1892-1973)

"Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them." ~John Maxwell

"Children, don't speak so coarsely," said Mr. Webster, who had a vague notion that some supervision should be exercised over his daughters' speech, and that a line should be drawn, but never knew quite when to draw it. He had allowed his daughters to use his library without restraint, and nothing is more fatal to maidenly delicacy of speech than the run of a good library. ~Robertson Davies, Tempest Tost

"You go to school, you get a master's degree, you study Shakespeare and you wind up being famous for plastic glasses." ~Sally Jessy Raphael

"I've yet to be on a campus where most women weren't worrying about some aspect of combining marriage, children, and a career. I've yet to find one where many men were worrying about the same thing." ~Gloria Steinem

"Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail, no one will say, 'She doesn't have what it takes.' They will say, 'Women don't have what it takes.'" ~Clare Boothe Luce

"It took me a long time not to judge myself through someone else's eyes." ~Sally Field

"The art of being a woman can never consist of being a bad imitation of a man" ~Olga Knopf

"I think the key is for women not to set any limits." ~ Martina Navratilova

“Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are.” ~ Malcolm S. Forbes

"The male stereotype makes masculinity not just a fact of biology, but something that must be proved and re-proved, a continual quest for an ever-receding Holy Grail." Marc Feigen Fasteau

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." Marcel Proust

"Most great men and women are not perfectly rounded in their personalities, but are instead people whose one driving enthusiasm is so great it makes their faults seem insignificant"~Charles A. Cerami

"When you're prepared, you're more confident. When you have a strategy, you're more comfortable." ~ Fred Couples

"I'm not bragging but my movies have grossed well over a billion dollars." ~ Steve Guttenberg

"I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works. An assault upon a town is a bad thing; but starving it is still worse." ~ Samuel Johnson

"Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in." ~Henry David Thoreau

"And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt." ~Sylvia Plath

"If you don't like something change it; if you can't change it, change the way you think about it." ~Mary Engelbreit

"We must not promise what we ought not, lest we be called on to perform what we cannot." ~Abraham Lincoln

"One summer night, out on a flat headland, all but surrounded by the waters of the bay, the horizons were remote and distant rims on the edge of space. Millions of stars blazed in darkness, and on the far shore a few lights burned in cottages. Otherwise there was no reminder of human life. My companion and I were alone with the stars: the misty river of the Milky Way flowing across the sky, the patterns of the constellations standing out bright and clear, a blazing planet low on the horizon. It occurred to me that if this were a sight that could be seen only once in a century, this little headland would be thronged with spectators. But it can be see many scores of nights in any year, and so the lights burned in the cottages and the inhabitants probably gave not a thought to the beauty overhead; and because they could see it almost any night, perhaps they never will." ~Rachel Carson

"I am still learning." ~Michelangelo

"When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you." ~Lao-tzu

"There are only three ages for women in Hollywood - Babe, District Attorney, and Driving Miss Daisy." ~Goldie Hawn

"Be nice to people on your way up because you meet them on your way down." ~ Jimmy Durante

"Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it." ~Albert Einstein

"Diseases of the soul are more dangerous and more numerous than those of the body." ~Cicero

“Ignorance begets confidence more frequently than does knowledge.” Charles Darwin

"A smooth sea never made a skillful mariner. " ~Unknown

"A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him or her. " ~David Brinkley

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." ~Anais Nin

"Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it." ~Confucius

"Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty." ~Henry Ford

"To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill. " Sun-tzu in The Art of War; Shambhala, 1991

"I have frequently been questioned, especially by women, of how I could reconcile family life with a scientific career. Well, it has not been easy." Marie Curie (1897-1956)

"The mythology of science asserts that with many different scientists all asking their own questions and evaluating the answers independently, whatever personal bias creeps into their individual answers is cancelled out when the large picture is put together. This might conceivably be so if scientists were women and men from all sorts of different cultural and social backgrounds who came to science with very different ideologies and interests. But since, in fact, they have been predominantly university-trained white males from privileged social backgrounds, the bias has been narrow and the product often reveals more about the investigator than about the subject being researched." Ruth Hubbard (1924), American Biologist